Saturday, August 20, 2011

Coincidences-5

Animal anecdotes 5.

Everybody seems to be interested in coincidences and most everyone has one or more to relate. Here are a couple that interested me. My wife, Dorothy kept up to date on the availability of litters of Gordon Setter puppies so for anyone interested in purchasing either a show type or a hunting type along the East coast she was the one to call. One contact called from Boston who had another friend who was interested in purchasing one. Dot knew of no available litters near the Boston area but there was a litter in New York City. A big place is New York City if you haven’t heard.

Her Boston friend said his friend lives in New York City, What is the address?When the New York City person was contacted he was dumbfounded as the address was his own street a block or so away. He walked down the street and purchased the Gordon Setter puppy he wanted.

Another coincidence was nowhere as spectacular but was far out concerned the client with a young mongrel pet presented after having had a grand mal epileptiform seizure. Everything about the dog appeared to be normal to me and my suggestion was to do nothing as it is not unusual for a dog to have one convulsion and never another for the rest or its life. A month later the client returned with the sad tale of another seizure and I prescribed a medication. A month passed and the dog was returned for a third convulsion with the news that each convulsion had come on the full of the moon. Did I believe the moon could influence such an attack? No, coincidence was my insistence.A month went by and there was the dog with a milder convulsion. About the full of the moon, after all it does control the tides. Couldn’t it also have some affect on the dog? With effort I again tried to plead coincidence when on the fifth full of the moon the dog was right on schedule with that fifth convulsion. Coincidence became a difficult sell but how would the full moon do that to a dog?

The dog’s record showed the five events and years later perhaps 8 or so I asked the owners and was told the dog had similar convulsions all its life but never again on the full of the moon. Moreover when I had to euthanize the dog for old age problems he still never had a seizure on the full of the moon all his life after the five. That in itself is one huge coincidence to interperit. Why not even once since the first five? I will always wonder.